I moved to Taiwan as a spritely young man of 29 years. Of course, my first priority was economic survival, but not far down the list was a relationship. I had reached the age where random interactions with women at clubs was losing its luster. That’s the venue where being a foreigner best allows you to exceed your capabilities. Unfortunately, when seeking a long-term “real” relationship, being a foreigner was not an advantage.

Being new to Taiwan I didn’t really have the dating chops necessary for success. I don’t know if other foreigners have experienced this. I suspect that most new arrivals immerse themselves so deeply in the party scene that they don’t notice, or care, that they’re not creating deeper relationships. At the time that didn’t appeal to me.

I ran into two uniquely Taiwanese problems right off the bat.

There was a prohibition against 29-year-old women marrying. It was thought an unsuitable time for major life changes, part of Taiwan’s ubiquitous birth date numerology fengshui thing. Taiwanese women either needed to marry before turning 29, or wait until after, when they’d be considered old maids (老處女: lao chunu). Of course, there were no similar problems for men; mid-30’s was generally considered an appropriate time for a randy young buck to begin exploring options with an eye towards eventually settling down. This doesn’t seem to be true for women anymore, but it was a common idea at that time, and it did not help me. Women in what I considered an appropriate dating age range were on a mission to get married. They couldn’t let anything deter them from their goal. A socially inept foreigner, dipping his toes into the Taiwanese dating pool, was hardly marriage material and nothing but a distraction. They were laser focused on their goals, and I didn’t fit in.

Another problem I ran into was that women my own age seemed to want to date men at least 10 years older than themselves. That meant the eligible women for me, as a 29-year-old, to date were around 19 or 20, and had the maturity of a 12-year-old back home. They were sexually attractive and yet fundamentally unappealing.

I now realize that I was probably meeting mostly wai sheng (外省) women. Their fathers had been Chinese soldiers who’d fled to Taiwan. They’d lost years of their lives to the civil war. When’s they got to Taiwan and had a chance to make up for lost time, they chose young brides. Their daughters regarded this age gap as normal and desirable. I wasn’t culturally astute enough to realize I’d have had better success if I’d sought bensheng (本省) women.

Intercultural dating can throw up surprising obstacles, these were two I faced early in my time in Taiwan. Fortunately, horny always finds a way.